Chapter 316
First of all, I wanted to check who the traitor was.
It was the first thing Lean said as soon as he saw Yu-hyun.
Yu-hyun and Lean teamed up again and headed towards the Ice Cliff.
Thinking about it was one thing, but they couldn’t halt the exploration team’s work on the surface.
Thus, the two began their stakeout to find traces of the traitor around the Ice Cliff, and five days had already passed.
Looking at the snow that continued to fall today, Yu-hyun opened his mouth.
“So, have you made a decision?”
“……Not yet.”
“Not yet? ‘Not yet’?! How many days have passed since then?”
“Five days have passed.”
“And you still haven’t decided?”
“Don’t rush me. I was about to make a conclusion soon.”
Over the past five days, the two had visited this place three times, and this was their fourth visit.
Each time they came here, they only roamed around the vicinity and did not enter the canyon as before.
This was because they thought that the traitor might reveal themselves again in this area.
The entrance was open, suggesting the traitor might be hiding.
“What about the Emperor of Frechen?”
“He’s the same as always. Acting on his own whims and wandering around.”
“I heard that Frechen wandered around this area the most. I also heard that he was in charge of exploring this area.”
“That’s right.”
“Could the Emperor be the culprit?”
“I can’t be sure. But it’s also true that the likelihood is high.”
Yu-hyun surveyed his surroundings. There was no one else around except the two of them.
“I heard that Frechen has often shown suspicious behavior. Why didn’t you stop him?”
“If I had tried to stop him, he would have resisted even more violently. Besides, I didn’t feel the need to.”
“You didn’t feel the need?”
“Even if I had stopped him, it wouldn’t have been beneficial. It would have been harmful instead. But that doesn’t mean I left him alone. I picked a few fast and tight-lipped people to investigate Frechen’s faction. I told them to monitor his every move.”
“Who were they?”
“Rayon.”
“The man who was your right-hand.”
“Right-hand… is not quite accurate. It’s not like I arbitrarily called him that. Rather, Rayon took it upon himself.”
Yu-hyun knew Rayon well from their conversations over the past few days.
A man who was cold, rational, and proud of his work as an Explorer.
As someone who believed that a warrior of the Great Gard should fight honorably until the moment of death, he was the perfect person to secretly investigate Frechen.
“I thought we would catch a tail after several stakeouts over five days, but it seems we came up empty again.”
They were spending time near the hidden entrance under the pretext of exploration to find any traces of the traitor.
The mere presence of traces around the exit of the canyon was insufficient evidence.
There was no way to be certain who had been there. There wouldn’t be a name inscribed on the remains of a burnt rune stone.
Even if Frechen was suspected, they couldn’t publicly accuse him without solid proof.
“Didn’t you say the exploration headquarters keeps records of who went where and when?”
“Yes. Detailed records of the routes the exploration team has taken over the past 32 years are documented. These records have been organized and transferred to a map.”
“Is it possible to use those records to prove Frechen’s betrayal? If we check Frechen’s movements, we should be able to see if he was in this area.”
“I’ve thought about it, but that’s not enough. Frechen’s position is strong, and just wandering around the area doesn’t prove anything.”
They didn’t have a decisive blow.
The two racked their brains for a while.
It would have been easier to just declare someone a traitor and be done with it, but reality didn’t work that way.
Without a clear answer, they continued to stake out in this area.
“It seems we came up empty again today.”
“That’s probably right. It’s even more suspicious to come out on a day like this.”
Today, there was a festival in Gard.
A Memorial Festival. An annual event held to comfort the souls of the dead and boost the morale of the survivors.
On this day, even Explorers take a break from their explorations, eat, and drink to rest their tired bodies—a day of leisure, in other words.
As the leader of Gard, Lean couldn’t stay here for long and miss the Memorial Festival.
“Can’t you just skip it?”
“There are people waiting for you as well.”
Lean chuckled, saying it was an unusual situation.
“Until now, you’ve been ostracized as a witch, but this is the first time you’re being acknowledged.”
“You seem the happiest about it.”
“……I can’t deny that. But it’s better than having someone who looks like her being cursed.”
“By the way, the Memorial Festival… did it start after the Curse of the Frozen Land?”
“No. The Memorial Festival didn’t start after the Curse of the Frozen Land. It existed long before. The Gardian’s people have held a festival to honor the souls of the dead every year. The world was peaceful before the Curse of the Frozen Land spread, but that peace was not long ago. Before that, wars were more frequent, and conflicts and raids between tribes were rampant. The Memorial Festival existed even then.”
“It’s a long-standing tradition.”
“Yes. After the era of peace arrived, it turned into a celebration rather than a solemn event.”
Lean looked into the distance with a nostalgic gaze.
“Long before the Curse of the Frozen Land spread, when I had just been chosen as a candidate and started my training. Kaira took me to the Memorial Festival.”
Perhaps it was the atmosphere.
Despite the sudden old story, Yu-hyun listened quietly.
“Candidates train in remote areas where people rarely go. As a result, they can’t set foot in large cities or kingdoms. It can be quite suffocating, so maybe she took me to a nearby small tribe village because she was worried about me.”
Though it was a shabby festival compared to those of the Empire.
Lean did not resent it.
“I, who didn’t know how to fight and knew nothing, was just happy to be able to participate in the festival. But more than that, I was happy to hold her hand and wander around all day.”
At night, a large bonfire was lit in the center of the village.
The Gard people danced around it.
“I didn’t like fighting but loved playing and having fun. So, I reached out to Kaira and asked her to dance with me. Kaira was surprised by my suggestion, saying it was the first time she had been asked to dance.”
Eventually, she softly smiled and shook her head.
“She said she couldn’t dance. It was funny. Someone who possessed the sword skills to train a great warrior and could use powerful rune magic better than anyone else couldn’t dance like the villagers.”
It was both funny and pitiable, so Lean gave up on dancing and squatted next to her, hugging his knees.
Lean still remembered that moment.
The beautiful night sky filled with starlight and the large bonfire soaring as if to burn the sky.
And most of all, the warmth of her that felt so close.
“I didn’t know what I was so disappointed about back then, but I said that we should dance next time. I said I’d teach her if she didn’t know how, and that it would be fun to learn.”
“What did Kaira say?”
“She said she would look forward to it.”
Even in the difficult and painful past, it was one of the few memories he could call a recollection.
But that promise was not fulfilled.
Because Kaira was no longer there.
“Even so, the Memorial Festival is an important day for me. So I never missed it. For the past 32 years, I insisted on continuing the Memorial Festival more than anyone else.”
“I see.”
Their conversation ended there.
They waited a while longer, hoping the traitor would appear, but no one did.
‘Is it over for today? Was it foolish to think the traitor would come here on the day of the Memorial Festival?’
He didn’t know how much time was left.
Even so, they couldn’t just attack Georn. With a traitor inside, they couldn’t predict what they would do at a crucial moment.
As they were about to leave with regret, they noticed a black shadow flickering beyond the curtain of the snowstorm.
“……! Could it be?”
“Shh. Don’t jump to conclusions. It might be a Frost Giant.”
They lowered themselves and watched the unidentified shadow closely.
At first, they thought it was a Frost Giant. But that thought soon changed.
‘The stride is consistent, and the direction is fixed.’
Frost Giants moved unpredictably. They had no intelligence and existed only to kill people, so they never moved in a regular manner.
But that shadow was clearly heading straight for the hidden entrance here.
In other words, that shadow was not a Frost Giant.
Yu-hyun and Lean exchanged glances and nodded simultaneously.
They had finally caught a tail.
The tail, unaware that two people were staking out here, approached cautiously.
No, it wasn’t just cautious. The movements were extremely careful, as if observing something.
‘Could it be that they suspect we’re here?’
Or was there something else?
As the tail approached, it was hard to distinguish the face due to the snowstorm. All they could see was a one-handed axe at the waist and a horned helmet pulled down deep over the head.
It was clear it wasn’t a Frost Giant but a person. An Explorer, to be precise.
The tail suddenly stopped in its tracks.
‘They noticed something!’
‘I know!’
At that moment, Lean moved.
He sprang from the snow and swung his sword to subdue the opponent.
Clang!
“Hm?”
But the opponent immediately pulled out an axe
and parried Lean’s slash. Lean was slightly surprised. It was a relaxed strike, but he hadn’t expected it to be blocked.
Seeing Yu-hyun rise behind Lean, the tail swung the axe horizontally.
The snow on the ground flipped over, creating a huge wave towards Yu-hyun and Lean.
As Lean cut through the wave with his sword, the tail fled without looking back.
“Don’t let them get away!”
“I know!”
Lean answered, but it was not easy to chase the tail in the increasingly fierce snowstorm.
The person they thought was the tail was not an ordinary Gardian warrior. They had the strength to be considered a top warrior, at least.
A top warrior was comparable to an advanced collector on Earth.
They had strength, but their instinct was sharp enough to escape before being caught.
Yu-hyun and Lean had no choice but to track the traces left in the snow.
But then.
‘Two sets of tracks?’
What they thought was one trail was actually two overlapping trails.
And the two trails eventually split in different directions.
‘These aren’t the tracks from when they came. The direction they’re heading is consistent, which means there isn’t just one person.’
Yu-hyun and Lean’s faces hardened when they saw the tracks.
They had thought there was only one traitor, but this suggested there were at least two. And possibly more.
It was too risky to split up and follow them.
“Let’s head back.”
“……We should.”
The snowstorm seemed to mock them, growing fiercer. The world turned white, making it hard to distinguish anything.
Yu-hyun and Lean returned to the place where they had clashed with the person.
“Wait. Look at this.”
“What’s this?”
Yu-hyun picked up an object from the ground. It was a piece of metal.
When Lean had slashed earlier, part of the axe blade had been cut off.
“With this, we can compare the weapon and find out who it is.”
“What if they discard the weapon?”
“Among Explorers, it’s immediately noticeable if someone changes or discards their weapon. Weapons are limited, and warriors cherish their own.”
“There were two trails. Do you think there are more?”
“……I thought there might be more than one, but if they’re this skilled and there are several of them, there’s only one possibility.”
“Frechen. So he really is the traitor.”
They finally had solid evidence. The two quickly returned to Gard.
They couldn’t predict what the traitors might do if they suspected they’d been discovered.
“Hey! You two are back?”
Upon returning to Gard, Ringug was the first to greet them.
“Rayon was looking for you, wandering around, and just came back. I thought you went far, but you came back right away. The Memorial Festival is about to start, so you need to prepare. You can’t miss it as the main characters.”
“No. That’s not important right now. Where’s Frechen? Have you seen him?”
“The Emperor of Frechen? Oh, I heard he went out with his men. He said he’d be back before the Memorial Festival started.”
“……Really?”
Was this timing a coincidence?
Yu-hyun and Lean became even more certain.
“Lean. I’ll go to the exploration headquarters and check if anyone went out today.”
“Okay. I’ll gather the Explorers. We don’t know what might happen.”
They were almost 80% sure that Frechen was the culprit, but it wasn’t 100% yet.
Yu-hyun intended to check at the headquarters to see if anyone had gone out today.
If all the traitors were from Frechen’s faction, that would be one thing, but there might be a spy among the Explorers as well.
“What’s going on?”
Rayon, who was drying the melted snow in the square, asked as he saw Yu-hyun moving hurriedly.
“Oh, Rayon. So, um… I’m a bit busy now…”
“……Something happened. I saw Lean gathering the other Explorers. Is it important?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll help. His business is my business, after all.”
With Rayon, Lean’s right-hand man, stepping in, Yu-hyun felt more reassured.
Yu-hyun headed to the exploration headquarters with Rayon.
* * *
Ringug had received something close to an order from Lean. He had been asked to gather the Explorers preparing for the festival in one place.
Although he didn’t ask why Lean seemed too busy, Ringug decided to follow the order.
As he wandered around, he saw a group of people rushing from the entrance of the fortress wall.
Leading the group was Frechen, with his white mane-like hair and beard.
He wondered where they were going, watching Frechen closely as he approached Ringug at a tremendous speed.
“Explorer Ringug, right?”
“Uh, yes. But why?”
“Where are Lean and Kaira? Have you seen them?”
“Lean and Kaira? Why are you asking about them all of a sudden?”
Ringug became wary of Frechen’s sudden question about Lean and Kaira’s whereabouts.
As he took a step back, Frechen’s face twisted even more menacingly.
“Hurry and tell me. There’s no time.”
* * *
Upon arriving at the headquarters, the inside was empty.
Even those who were supposed to be working inside had all gathered in the city’s square for the Memorial Festival.
Yu-hyun thought it was rather fortunate. He didn’t need to waste time explaining.
He headed straight to the exploration record room. Countless parchments were scattered around.
Rayon leaned against the door and asked.
“So, what are you looking for?”
“I’m checking today’s external exit records. Let’s see, here’s this week’s summary.”
“No one was supposed to go out today.”
“Frechen’s group did.”
But he needed to check if anyone else went out.
Yu-hyun’s eyes quickly scanned the parchments.
“Frechen? What did he do?”
“He showed suspicious behavior.”
“Suspicious behavior?”
“Yes. I heard Frechen went out again today with his group, and one of them approached an already explored area.”
“An already explored area? There are too many of those to keep track.”
“You know the mountain range crossing the northern continent? The Ice Cliff now. We found traces near there. No, it was evidence. Of at least two people.”
“Two people? Are you sure?”
“Why do you keep asking…”
Yu-hyun started to speak but stopped himself.
– Rayon was looking for you, wandering around, and just came back.
He recalled what Ringug had said when they returned.
Yu-hyun tensed up, rolling his eyes.
‘Wait. Why did I miss this?’
When they first thought they had caught a tail, there was something strange about the tail’s actions.
The person moved cautiously and quietly. If they were checking the entrance, there was no need for such behavior.
That behavior was more like someone chasing something else.
And the two trails.
What if the tail they thought they caught was actually not?
What if the other trail they thought was a fellow traitor was actually someone the tail was chasing?
Lean had said he secretly sent someone to monitor Frechen in case he did something suspicious.
In other words.
That monitor was the second most frequent visitor to the Ice Cliff area after Frechen’s group.
“Why did you suddenly stop? Did you find something?”
That person was standing right behind Yu-hyun.